News Hits usually waits until after Halloween to begin our pre-Christmas bitching, but we decided to get a jump on the festivities by pointing out that among those hitting you up for a seasonal handout this year will be a destitute entity known hereabouts as the City of Detroit.
That’s right, the city doesn’t have the cash to buy Christmas trees. So, the Recreation Department is asking homeowners to donate pines and firs with which to spruce up Hart Plaza and downtown boulevards. City officials want evergreens 20 to 45 feet tall, “fully round and easily accessible for cutting and removal.”
Here’s the city’s spin: “Residents are encouraged to save hundreds of dollars in tree removal costs by allowing the Recreation Department to remove front yard evergreens that have outgrown their space.”
City forestry staff will inspect your tree before accepting it. Removal would be in early November. To learn more, the beneficent can call Earl Colbert at 313-876-4277.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but is decking our boulevards with tannenbaums worth all the needling we’ll take when those sappy late-night comics catch whiff of how our boughs were acquired?
News Hits could be wrong, but it doesn’t seem like it will do mulch to help project the image of Detroit as a world-class city.
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